Traveling in Romania: some myths, some tips, and something about gypsies

Before I went to Romania several people warned me it might be dangerous, that I should look out. Oh man were they right–why just the other morning a calf escaped and took off down the dirt road with his new wobbly legs splayed all about with dad and granny chasing after him. I mean, who know what might have happened to us.

While I acknowledge that a couple of weeks in Romania does not make me an expert on it’s culture, I strongly believe in having my own first hand experiences and I want to share with you what I learned.

First some myths:

Romania is dangerous. Close encounters with runaway calves aside, Romania is not dangerous to tourists. Sure, the area around the train station in Bucharest is a bit dodgy, but no worse than in any other European city. And just like in the rest of Europe, you should be vigilant about pickpockets. The drivers seem to do a lot of passing on narrow streets, on curves and around blind corners–so, if like me, you’re nervous in cars, it’s best to take public transportation or hire a tour guide. Otherwise, I’d rank Romania the second safest country I’ve visited, after Germany.

Wild, potentially rabid dogs are running around in packs. Many sources, including my guide book, led me fear I would be constantly dodging rabid dogs—didn’t happen. There were some sad-eyed mutts about that broke my heart, but no scary dogs. Well, there was this pup. As you can tell, he scared the pants off of me.

Public bathrooms are disgusting pits. As someone with a minor bathroom phobia, this one worried me the most. I am relieved (pun intended) to inform you that this too is a myth. While bathrooms were not omnipresent, we managed to find decent bathrooms almost everywhere. I used the toilet in a train station in central Bucharest, bracing myself for a nose holding sprint, and to my surprise, it was clean and freshly mopped. Bathrooms inside the trains themselves were not particularly pleasant, but no worse than in any other European country.

Romanians are totally psyched about Dracula. Dracula kitsch, as far as we saw, is confined mostly to Sighișoara. (I’m sure that Bran Castle also has it’s share of Dracula cheesiness, but we didn’t go there.) Bram Stoker’s Dracula is a literary character. Romania’s historical Dracula is Vlad III, the one-time Prince of Wallachia, is often confused with his dad Vlad II Dracul. At any rate, Dracula is a major tourist draw for visitors to Romania, but seems to be of little interest to actual Romanians.

And now, a few tips:

Use cash. Romania is a cash economy. While you can use a credit card in larger cities, cash is needed everywhere else. Every time I hit up and ATM machine I wished I pulled out twice as much.

BWOT(bring your own toilet paper). We brought several mini-rolls and used up almost all of our supply.

Stay in a guest house. Guest houses are cheap, clean and ideal for cultural immersion. If you have an option to buy breakfast or dinner at your guest house, do it.

Choose home-cooked foods and grocery store delisover restaurants. If you have a chance to eat a home-cooked meal in Romania, go for it. These people know how to cook delicious, rich meals with locally produced ingredients. Larger groceries have surprisingly excellent prepared foods at low prices. We also had great luck with cafeteria-style steam table cusine–it was fresh, tasty and budget friendly. The restaurants we ate at in Romania, however, were quite mediocre.

Be alert on the train. Romania trains are affordable, punctual, and cover much of the country, but the stops are poorly sign-posted and the stations are not announced at the stops. If you’re not paying attention, you could easily miss your stop.

Meet people. People are the keepers of their culture. We found Romanians to be savvy, friendly and low key. Also, their children are exceptionally beautiful.

And now some thoughts about gypsies.

There are a lot of Roma people (aka gypsies) in Romania. They appear to live entirely apart from the rest of Romanians. Having spoke with several Romanians about the Roma people, I have to say that there is a huge problem with racist discrimination against gypsies in Romania. I am uncomfortable writing this, especially since I am from the USA and my country has it’s own dark history of denying civil rights to minorities. Also, and this is even more difficult to write about, I have my own stereotypes about gypsies to deal with. When I see gypsies while traveling, I often assume that they want to rob me, and I hold my bag a little tighter. After several Romanians told me that the gypsies survive by crime and prostitution, we had an enlightening conversation with a British expat who has made Northern Romania his adopted home. He told us that the Roma families have been living in the same villages for many years but are treated like outlaws. They have little redress if a crime is committed against them by Romania people. People feel free to shout invectives out the window of cars to gypsies who are minding their own business.

I would be curious to learn more about the lives of gypsies in Romania from people with first hand experience. From my limited experience, gypsies are victims of institutionalized discrimination and a wide-spread denial of civil rights. In the otherwise lovely country of Romania, this is troubling indeed.

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42 comments

Yeah, racism towards Roma people seems to be the socially accepted form of racism here in Italy, too. Even just in little things – there are often Roma women on the bus I catch to work, and if the seat next to one of them is empty, it stays empty no matter how full the bus gets.

There is a joke in Romania that goes like this: “Ion and a gypsy were neighbors. They had the same amount of land and built identical houses. At some point Ion put his house for sale. Gypsy also put his house for sale but asked double the price and had double the visitors. Confused, one day Ion asked Gypsy “Țigane, we have the same amount of land and identical houses. Why do you ask double the price and how come you have double visitors?” Gypsy answered “You see, Ioane… nobody wants a gypsy as a neighbor”.

Thank you for your comment ssambodhi. Are you Romanian? If so, it would be interesting to hear your perspective on the integration of gypsies in Romanian culture. It is very difficult to understand as a visitor.

The first time we visited Granada an American expat in Costa Rica told us to walk in the centre of the road to avoid being mugged…apparently being mown down by a horse and cart was preferable…
I love the country…

Great post! It’s definitely important to dispel myths through traveling and try to go into it with an open mind. In a cultural anthropology class I took this semester, we talked about how to travel more consciously and it sounds like you do a great job of it (taking public transit, talking to people, and staying away from the kitschy tourist route).

Thank you Louise! Sometimes I think the mainstream media is just there to scare us, sell us things, or promote a political ideology (this is why I support community media and of course, blogging). I’m happy Romania is on your list—I can’t wait to go back again!

I would like to high point that gipsies ARE NOT DISCRIMATED in Romania. Romanians people are very friendly with them. This is one of the reason that a huge gipsy community remained in Romania as they found here a lovely place to live. Otherwise they could make for themselves all the legally documents to get settled in Romania. They have the same rights with Romanian people, even more. The big problems are instead their behaviour. But this is not generally as I myself met honourable gypsy people.

As for Dracula: I grew up in Hungary and visited Transylvania several times, studied a great deal of folklore, and as the area used to be Hungary for many hundreds of years and there are still many Hungarians living there, we learned also about the history – but it was only as an adult, way after I started living abroad and meeting people from Western countries when I first heard about the Dracula frenzy…

As for Gypsies: I knew a few Hungarian Gypsy musicians from villages around Cluj, they were great people (most of them already old men that time and not in this world any more). Now it’s their sons and grandsons who keep the music alive, that’s how it goes, traditionally it was very often Gypsies who would play music.

Thank you Andrea—I’m so happy to hear that the younger generation is keeping the musical traditions alive. My husband’s grandfather moved to the United States from Hungary in his 20s and HOB would beg him to play his Hungarian gypsy record. His grandfather would play the records and walk around on his hands to the music!

I’m glad you debunked some “myths” regarding Romania with your article and that you enjoyed your overall experice here. Unfortunatelt, I too think that the media is to blame for most stereotypes, not only regarding Romania but other countries as well. It’s best to make your own opinion about something than just assume the worst. Thank you for sharing!

Just read this!! 🙂 Brings me back to my days in Romania! I remember how I disliked restaurant food as they were too salty. I was lucky enough to eat homemade organic Romanian food and it was the bomb! And with the Roma, I have even encountered people who told me not to look them in the eye! Because they might cast a spell on me or something. But they have such beautiful clothes, colourful too! I even saw some castles that they live in somewhere in Western Romania. It’s a pity I havent actually talked to one. Definitely safe for tourists!! (As an Asian, I got a lot of stares tho)

This seems really cool, I’m flying in soon on a business trip, I’ll make sure to check it out. I usually travel with http://bucharesttransfer.com/ I hope they will know how to get there, they have not let me down so far.

I hope your business trip allows you some time to see Romania Mike. It is one of my favorite all time countries and I especially loved the high level of craftsmanship that permeates all aspect of Romanian culture. And of course, the landscape is stunning!

I came across your article while looking for some myths about Romania. I’m Romanian and I teach English and I have a French student who’d like to find out more about Romania. so here I am preparing my lesson :). My French student told me about Romanian pickpockets and how Romanian people are not seen in a good light in France.
About gypsies, I think we do discriminate them, but there are some Roma people who beg or commit different crimes, in Romania and abroad. When I was a teenager, I was just walking on the street and, all of a sudden, a Roma woman cornered me and asked for some money, otherwise she would have spat me. So I guess these are the Roma people we discriminate. But there are many other Roma people who go to school and are just fine citizens. I guess that we discriminate Roma people according to some incidents with a few of them just as French or British people discriminate Romanian people just according to some cases they know of.

Hi Simona, thanks for stopping by to leave a comment. It is too bad that some French people don’t see Romanians in a good light. I guess that’s how stereotypes work; if someone like you does something bad, then we think that he or she is a bad individual but if someone different than you does something bad then we think that they represent everyone of their race/religion/nationality. I certainly do wish I had no stereotypes myself but of course I do!